mutual connections
by neverhappy10
Summary: What is love? Very AU, set in the future.Dedicated to my big bud :


For my dearest big bud :D I wrote this while inspired on Valentines day (cheesy I know)...on my phone. Sorry if the formats a lil weird and soz 4 the mistakes n stuff.

I met Naomi fucking Campbell at the climax of ardor, and declared my independence of logic—the fiend who had held me back, feeding on the passion of my soul. The dilapidated condition of her values stunned me, for I realized that, though I loved her, she was unsure if she loved me. The rationale she exhibited began and ended, "I'm a cynic. I dont believe in love."

We stood there, face-to-face, but it could have been that we were two astral bodies floating in the cosmic atmosphere of oblivion. For a moment, her words stunned me, for I couldn't believe she could have said something so trivial. Something that was beyond us. I looked into her cold blue eyes, watching her analyze the brilliance of everything around her, and knew that she was speaking the truth. She didn't believe in love.

"Naomi…"

She looked at me and summed me up with the same methodical expression she had given everything else. Sadly, I watched as a smile crept upon her face. Before, Naomi's smile had always seemed like dawn, but now I realized that it belonged to the rise of an evening without stars…without a moon. I saw only darkness in her.

"Emily, don't tell me you believe in love?"

"I do."

"Since when?"

Although I knew she worked in a dog-eat-dog world, where some people brandished whips while others scraped and scattered to satiate their laborer's need for sweat, I never thought it would affect us. I thought we were different, that such infestations as logic, cynicism, and skepticism wouldn't sneak into her ways of life—but they had taken her when I wasn't near…and brought her down to their level.

"How could you not?"

She raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"

I looked to my left and saw the dragon of my reality: the massive build of high-rise after high-rise; the roar of traffic; and the blistering breath of pollution. We weren't part of a perfect world, but she had promised to be my knight; to save me from a world that only wanted to destroy me. Naomi Campbell was my world. I claimed she was perfection. Seeing that she was diverting from the road we had created with our time and commitment, I realized that I had been fooled. There were no knights to save me; there were only dragons to enslave me.

"Emily, what is love?"

"If you have to ask that, I guess what we have isn't real."

"It isn't." I knew what she meant. Her dad left her when she was younger. She had no reason to believe in love. I did.

"Can you convince me otherwise?"

"I have no time for your mind games," I said, quietly, though wanting desperately to demand why she didn't love me back.

My heart raced whenever she walked into a room and I wanted to capture every movement she ever made—if just to store it at the back of my mind whenever I was feeling down. I was crazy about her, wanting to spend every waking moment with her eyes on me. I showed her the lake, went to her granddad's funeral, laid my heart out on the line and said I loved her. How could such affection not be mutual?

"You want me to marry you, don't you?" I looked at Naomi, my heart stopping for a second.

"Yes."

"Yet… is love in a diamond? Is that the measure of love?"

I should have kept quiet, to let her find the silence answer enough to starve her insanity, which was continuously feeding on answers. Instead, I responded, "No. Everything is immaterial but love. Love is immeasurable."

"Why, then? Why a diamond? Why chocolate? Why roses? Why do you want all of these things, if love is immeasurable?"

"Diamonds represent love, because they remind lovers of—"

"What, the chastity of marriage? Shouldn't vows to one another be enough?"

"Sometimes it isn't."

"Why?"

"Because we live in a world that is filled with… evil."

She smiled at this. It wasn't a calculating smile, but I didn't like it. She was mocking me. "Evil, eh?"

"Well, yeah. Evil," I said, blushing as she continued to look at me.

"Isn't a kiss enough? What about a caress? What about the words "I love you"? Isn't all of that enough?"

"I guess it could be."

"Then you don't want to marry me?"

"I do want to marry you."

"Why can't you take my word instead of a diamond to represent my love, my utmost devotion to you?"

"I could."

"But you won't. Why?" Again, she was fucking analyzing me. I started crying. Usually, I didn't cry, because I realize that doing so is always stupid of me. In this case, however, I didn't care. I wasn't going to spend the last few seconds waiting for a bomb to go off in my heart. I was going to release my anguish, my sadness for realizing that everything we had was gone.

"I don't know!" I exclaimed, wiping my eyes.

"I do." I looked at her but couldn't see her because of the tears in my eyes, so I attempted to wipe them away. She stood there, solemn, a smile dancing its way onto her face.

"I know why diamonds, chocolate, and roses are so important. I know why, but not because I can use any of my senses to detect it. I feel it, in the core of my soul, whenever I'm around you. I have never said the words "I love you" with as much meaning as I'm feeling right now. I have never lied awake at night, watching anyone sleep. I haven't…until I met you. There's no possible way to be a cynic around you. I have tried. These last few months, I have tried so hard to be the pessimist I was born to be, but I can't. I realized this morning—Valentine's Day, if you can believe it—that I love you beyond anything I know. I love you, Emily. Will you marry me?" I watched as she got on bended knee, and opened the blue velvet box to reveal a diamond ring.

"Naomi…"

"Emily, will you marry me? I'lll give you everything you've ever wanted." I walked over to her and looked down at her, tears of joy pouring down my face. I slowly got on my knees in front of her, our smiles equaling each other's in brilliance because we were both happy. "I only want you." She put the ring on my trembling hand and kissed it, her eyes looking into mine while she did.

"Well, that's really good to hear. For a second, I thought there was someone else." I looked at her, pretending to be shocked.

"Well, I never!"

We laughed until we fell over. I looked at her, watched her face draw ever closer to mine, a yearning in her eyes that went hand-in-hand with the one in my heart.

"Happy Valentine's Day," she said, smiling for a second. Then: " I'm going to kiss you." And she did. Suddenly, I realized that the love I held in my heart was mutual. In the end, there were no dragons. There was just us. Two people sharing a kiss at the end of reason.


End file.
